There are many types of octopuses that divers can encounter, but marine experts in Blackpool’s Sea Life Centre in England believe they recently discovered a creature previously found only in movies.

Henry, as the unusual octopus was dubbed, is in fact a hexapus. Instead of the eight arms we’ve come to expect from garden variety octopuses, Henry only has six.

The reason experts believe that Henry Hexapus is a ‘true’ six armed hexapus and not merely an accident prone octopus, is two fold. Firstly, octopuses use autotomy as a defense mechanism, in other words, they can amputate their own arms, usually to escape capture by a predator. These severed arms can then be grown back.

Secondly, webbing separates the arm of an octopus and thus the difference between a missing arm and one that was never there to start with, is quite obvious. The latter applies to Henry, as there is no apparent space where the arms will grow back from.

Sea Life Centre staffers said that aside from the 1955 low budget movie ‘It Came From Beneath The Sea’, no other 6-armed octopuses have been apparently be found. And the only reason the movie featured a hexapus, was because the budget didn’t allow for two extra arms.

In real life Henry was discovered amongst seven other octopuses that the centre had collected from a local zoo for one of their own exhibitions. The hexapus escaped detection until he conspicuously splayed himself against the wall of the glass aquarium, thus exposing his shortcoming.

Six or eight legs aside, octopuses are marvelous creatures. When in dive locations such as Alor, Bali, Lembeh Straits and Raja Ampat in Indonesia, as well as Lankayan in Malaysia, octopuses are often sighted and you will discover their eccentric qualities such as three hearts, blue blood and arms that virtually think for themselves.

They have also been referred to as Chameleons of the Deep thanks to being able to change their skin colour (and sometimes texture) in a heartbeat. The mimic octopus in particular has perfected this technique.